Leviticus chapter 4 is not your reading of choice when you enjoy your morning cup of tea / coffee, or on your headphone while you are out walking the dog or doing your 10-mile run. It closely resembles some of the materials in earlier chapters 1 to 3. The first section, about unintentional sin committed the priest, has a pattern that is closely followed by not once but three times in the rest of the chapter. What’s going on? Do we need this? Or does God need to tell us this?
A few points might be useful as background:
- Leviticus might arguably be the first substantial and complete “manual” in human history that consists of instructions on maintaining and restoring harmonious relationship with God.
- Blood represents life, and sin is the cause of division between human and God, stopping human experiencing the fullness of life God intended.
- God is said to have a strong presence among his people especially in the Tabernacle.
There are some windows of fascination in the first two verses. The idea of "when you sin" suggests that some time or later you will sin: sinning requires little effort.
The text is as formulaic as your parent or elder sibling sternly said to you when you were young: “when you do that again, I will….”, or “you will not….”. Actions and words have consequences. Further, God being pure and holy could or would not let sin go by.
“Unwitting” or “unintentional” sins – the Hebrew word speaks of ignorance, and error caused through ‘not knowing’. It is not an act or will of choosing not to know, that then led to committing of sin. It is having done an error (sin), when the time leading up to the sin was when you consciously know it is not sin. (contrast this with ‘when you did not realise it is / could be sin).
| It also does not mean that you do or say something that has the potential to sin, and indeed somebody was hurt by your words or actions. The point is that the person did not intend. By this, it means the person had had no “plan” (intent) to sin. This refers to the fact his/her ‘knowing’ excludes intention to sin. | Why do we have such entry in this manual book? Well, the question is better asked “what do we do with sins that somehow fall off the definition of sins?” In other words, for sins that I didn’t know I would commit, now that I have done them, and maybe people get hurt, properties damaged, how could the offering formulas in chapters 1 to 3 be applicable here to restore our relationship with God? |
We first look at provision for the priest – next blog.
